Marcus Bontempelli’s midfield influence compared to Anthony Koutoufides

Luke Beveridge was happy enough to label Marcus Bontempelli “incredibly influential” and “unique” on the eve his star captain’s 200th game.

But the Western Bulldogs coach stopped short of declaring Bontempelli the best player in the AFL, or even playing the best football of his career, despite a blistering start to the 2023 season that has him second favourite for the Brownlow, behind only Collingwood’s Nick Daicos.

Beveridge wasn’t playing down how good Bontempelli has been, and even compared his impact to that of former Carlton superstar Anthony Koutoufides, who raised the bar for taller, athletic midfielders in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

It’s just that Bontempelli has “played some exceptional games” throughout his career and the coach said not only was it hard to compare how good he was now, he didn’t need to, and instead just marvelled at his captain’s brilliance.

“He‘s playing some very influential footy, but as you know he’s played some exceptional games in the past and it’s hard to compare them all because there’s been so many special ones,” Beveridge said on Friday.

“We use the term matchwinner sparingly, and it’s a label that he can definitely have in brackets after his name because he’s that kind of player.

“He’s played too many good ones just to really know right at this point in time whether it’s better than he has in the past.

“Marcus’ frame and his stature ... he and Patrick Cripps being six-foot four or five, it’s quite unusual for players like those to be able to do what they do with their agility, and there’s a lot of courage in that, there’s a lot of power in it. He’s definitely a unique player.

“I mean, we all can remember a guy named Anthony Koutoufides and what sort of a midfielder he was. He was originally a key position player and then transformed into just an amazing, influential midfielder. Marcus is kind of similar, I think.”

The Bulldogs get midfield gun Bailey Smith back this week from a calf injury as a replacement for concussed star Tom Liberatore.

Beveridge wasn’t sure if Liberatore would miss just the one game, such is the curious nature of how concussion impacts different players.

“It‘s hard to give a definitive yes or no on that because we treat so seriously the concussion side of it,” he said.

“I mean, if you look at history, he probably wouldn’t have even missed this week based on how we used to manage players 10 or 20 years ago.

“But definitely now there’s some impediments to a player coming back to play, particularly what we need to put them through to make sure they’re OK. It’s just still a maybe.”